Unpacking boxes from the move (still...a month later) continues to provide many thrills and Christmas-morning-like moments of discovery and wonder. Then again, I am pretty easily amused.
I found some of my favorite clothes that I used to wear to work and out places, but hadn't thought I'd need on our 3-month-trip-turned-permanent. Yay.
Went through heaps of files, got rid of 63 lbs. of paper (yup, I weighed the box to get a quote from a document shredding company).
And found a stack of letters from my childhood penpals written 20 years ago.
There was a girl from Scotland, a boy and a girl from the Philippines, and then more letters from one of her cousins who was my friend's penpal and had written to me too. But the girl from the Philippines was the most faithful writer, and her notes were full of encouragement and talk of being friends forever. She always had the cutest stationery, too (a lot of it looks Japanese) and I was always all embarrassed of my boring notebook paper (though sometimes I had managed to get it in pretty colors). We used to write when we were 10-14 or so, but lost contact after that.
And then I found her on facebook!
Her name had changed slightly, as many of ours do, and she wasn't in the Philippines anymore, so I wasn't sure if I had the right person, but sent a note anyway. She wrote back incredulous, and we sent messages back and forth all day long. Then I called her and we talked for an hour that day, and again for over an hour yesterday.
It was so much fun to realize that after all these years on opposite sides of the world, we both now live in the US. She speaks and writes American English like a pro, we are the same age, and we have had some similar enough experiences in life (such as living somewhere you aren't from, which I wrote about in earlier posts) to really connect. I'm waiting to hear back on some business trips I may be taking early next year, because if that contract goes through, two of them are in suburbs of her city and we could actually meet in person!
It's strange to me that back then, before cell phones and computers and stuff, we couldn't have known that we'd be chatting back and forth like this - instantly and for free. I look at the pile of letters now and feel kind of nostalgic, like I got to participate in a bygone tradition that "kids these days" may never know.
Signing off smiling and feeling blessed.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Around the House
A friend told me this past week, after a month of business travel and obligatory restaurant meals, that he couldn't wait to get home and have a plain old sandwich from his own fridge, as he'd noticed his pants getting tighter in the waist.
I tend to have the opposite problem. When I eat at restaurants, I often make a game of taking home enough leftovers for the next day's lunch, but all the time I've been spending in my own kitchen lately is making me feel a little...well, cuddlier. I haven't disturbed any equilibrium as far as the bathroom scale is concerned, maybe it's just psychological. And since it's all healthy and it's doing my soul good just to simply have the time to do it all, I'm not stopping. Plus, leftover nights are fabulous lately!
Here's what I've been up to this past week or so:
Pumpkin:
I cooked up the good-sized pumpkin we had on our porch, mashed it up for baking, and roasted up taco-seasoned seeds for "the big game" that night. Those went FAST! Got a good 5 1/2 quarts (22 cups) of mashed pumpkin out of it, which I froze in quart-size ziplocs for easy thawing and baking and soups and curries and stuff (I bought extra coconut milk at the Far East Market to try this dreamy soup and maybe substitute it in my pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, oohh). If you were doing the math, there were 2 cups left over, which I kept fresh and made into my favorite muffins in the world (next to the GIANT ones from Minneapolis' Hard Times Cafe, of course). Baked half the batch, and kept the other half of batter in the fridge for more soon!
Pot Roast:
Old-fashioned pork roast with potatoes, onions and carrots in the crock pot, with a little gravy mix packet (cheating!). Leftovers got a good dose of curry powder and a dollop of plain yogurt to become a Japanese-style curry, served over rice. I usually make that curry with a beef stew base, like B. and his family used to have in Japan, but this worked out just the same.
Salsa:
Roasted a load of fresh jalapenos, anaheim chiles and habaneros for two more batches of homemade salsa. When you roast them, they keep in the fridge for a good while, so I just used enough to complement the amount of tomatoes I had on hand to put in, and then got some more fresh tomatoes later in the week when we started running low. I had tried salsa several times before and never got these kinds of fabulous flavors - roasting is definitely the key.
Broccoli soup:
I got taken in by one of those little ticker ads at the top of my gmail inbox. I remember seeing a link to a recipe for Broccoli Cheddar Soup, and then later that day I was grocery shopping and found a bunch of broccoli on sale. Hmm. Not one to tempt fate, I picked up a healthy-sized bunch and found the recipe. The soup itself was good, but it was the mustardy croutons that made the day - what a great complement. Served it up with some toasted sandwiches and we ate it all.
Jambalaya:
B. looked up from his computer the other night and said, "I feel like something warm for supper, like a soup, with sausage and tomatoes and stuff." How's that for inspiration? Just so happened I had everything I needed for this jambalaya (except that I substituted rice vinegar for the wine and held the mint because that sounded a little strange to me - I meant to try it sprinkled on top just to see how it meshed with the other flavors, but forgot because it was so good as it was. I think there's a few bites left over that I'll have to try so I know if I should go for it next time). I stewed it in the crock pot all day long with brown rice and some corn muffins on the side. It turned out so creamy and the flavors were so well-integrated that I'll definitely be making this again.
Pesto:
The overnight temperature dipped low enough one night to start freezing the basil, though the other woodier herbs were fine. So I brought in the whole batch and made pesto, keeping one small stalk to replant. It's in a bud vase right now, and has already sprouted some healthy roots. I made pesto once before, and being the purist that I can sometimes be, decided it would be more of an experience, a rite of passage, a bonding with Italian grandmothers out there (no, I'm not the least bit Italian, but I do aspire to be a fabulously feisty granny!) if I chopped it all by hand. So of course I followed a recipe titled "How to Make Pesto Like an Italian Grandmother". The idea is to add stuff in at different times so it comes out slightly different textures and retains some of the flavors of individual ingredients, rather than an American-processed-food-style homogeneous paste. It turned out tasty, but still a little chunky for my liking. It's just really hard to chop it all fine enough with my dull old knives. So this time, I employed the elbow grease of a food processor, but still followed the recipe for what order to add things, and just pulsed it long enough to where it looked like I would have stopped chopping by hand for each step. The result was a really scrumptious mix that doesn't take much to spruce up a meal and keeps in the fridge for a good while.
Brazilian Beans & Rice:
A few years ago we spent two weeks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, staying in some friends' home and doing as they did. Part of that was an everyday lunch of beans & rice. I loved it - the simplicity, the routine, and the explosion of garlic and onion flavor. In the move I recaptured some ice cream buckets full of beans, which were preserved airtight and still great. (Actually, I've had them a whole lot longer than the year in storage. They were part of some friends of ours' parents' Y2K stock of foods you're supposed to keep on hand in case of crisis but never eat in real life, so that makes them more like 10 years old. Which I hesitate to say because you'll think I'm not really a "foodie" but like I said, once they're dried and sealed airtight, they pretty much keep forever.) Our Brazilian friends used pintos, but I used black beans. Soaked them overnight and cooked them on the stovetop for a few hours (next time I'll do the crockpot just for the forget-about-it factor, because they boiled over once and I had to remove all the stove rings and clean under there). Added some garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and cut-up smoked sausage for flavor and let that simmer together on low for a while, and Boom! Was it ever good. Had some of the leftover beans in breakfast burritos this morning, with scrambled egg, cheese, homemade salsa, sauteed spinach and onion, and a dollop of plain yogurt. I might be a little biased, but there's just no better way to start your day.
Senegalese Chicken Yassa:
A chili-lemon chicken stew similar to this one (though the actual recipe I used was on a printed page and I'm not sure where to find it online). Once again, the crock pot ruled the day. I added some tomatoes and spinach for the color and nutritional value, served it over a 5-minute pot of cous cous, and sprinkled my own serving with shredded coconut (B. opted out of that garnish). It was divine. A flavor really unlike what you normally taste here. I seriously think I was born on the wrong continent.
Looking forward to Thanksgiving:
To go with that coconut-creamy pumpkin pie I mentioned, I found a recipe for a tempting twist on sweet potatoes, for anyone who's sick of the old marshmallow-topped sugarbomb variety.
I tend to have the opposite problem. When I eat at restaurants, I often make a game of taking home enough leftovers for the next day's lunch, but all the time I've been spending in my own kitchen lately is making me feel a little...well, cuddlier. I haven't disturbed any equilibrium as far as the bathroom scale is concerned, maybe it's just psychological. And since it's all healthy and it's doing my soul good just to simply have the time to do it all, I'm not stopping. Plus, leftover nights are fabulous lately!
Here's what I've been up to this past week or so:
Pumpkin:
I cooked up the good-sized pumpkin we had on our porch, mashed it up for baking, and roasted up taco-seasoned seeds for "the big game" that night. Those went FAST! Got a good 5 1/2 quarts (22 cups) of mashed pumpkin out of it, which I froze in quart-size ziplocs for easy thawing and baking and soups and curries and stuff (I bought extra coconut milk at the Far East Market to try this dreamy soup and maybe substitute it in my pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, oohh). If you were doing the math, there were 2 cups left over, which I kept fresh and made into my favorite muffins in the world (next to the GIANT ones from Minneapolis' Hard Times Cafe, of course). Baked half the batch, and kept the other half of batter in the fridge for more soon!
Pot Roast:
Old-fashioned pork roast with potatoes, onions and carrots in the crock pot, with a little gravy mix packet (cheating!). Leftovers got a good dose of curry powder and a dollop of plain yogurt to become a Japanese-style curry, served over rice. I usually make that curry with a beef stew base, like B. and his family used to have in Japan, but this worked out just the same.
Salsa:
Roasted a load of fresh jalapenos, anaheim chiles and habaneros for two more batches of homemade salsa. When you roast them, they keep in the fridge for a good while, so I just used enough to complement the amount of tomatoes I had on hand to put in, and then got some more fresh tomatoes later in the week when we started running low. I had tried salsa several times before and never got these kinds of fabulous flavors - roasting is definitely the key.
Broccoli soup:
I got taken in by one of those little ticker ads at the top of my gmail inbox. I remember seeing a link to a recipe for Broccoli Cheddar Soup, and then later that day I was grocery shopping and found a bunch of broccoli on sale. Hmm. Not one to tempt fate, I picked up a healthy-sized bunch and found the recipe. The soup itself was good, but it was the mustardy croutons that made the day - what a great complement. Served it up with some toasted sandwiches and we ate it all.
Jambalaya:
B. looked up from his computer the other night and said, "I feel like something warm for supper, like a soup, with sausage and tomatoes and stuff." How's that for inspiration? Just so happened I had everything I needed for this jambalaya (except that I substituted rice vinegar for the wine and held the mint because that sounded a little strange to me - I meant to try it sprinkled on top just to see how it meshed with the other flavors, but forgot because it was so good as it was. I think there's a few bites left over that I'll have to try so I know if I should go for it next time). I stewed it in the crock pot all day long with brown rice and some corn muffins on the side. It turned out so creamy and the flavors were so well-integrated that I'll definitely be making this again.
Pesto:
The overnight temperature dipped low enough one night to start freezing the basil, though the other woodier herbs were fine. So I brought in the whole batch and made pesto, keeping one small stalk to replant. It's in a bud vase right now, and has already sprouted some healthy roots. I made pesto once before, and being the purist that I can sometimes be, decided it would be more of an experience, a rite of passage, a bonding with Italian grandmothers out there (no, I'm not the least bit Italian, but I do aspire to be a fabulously feisty granny!) if I chopped it all by hand. So of course I followed a recipe titled "How to Make Pesto Like an Italian Grandmother". The idea is to add stuff in at different times so it comes out slightly different textures and retains some of the flavors of individual ingredients, rather than an American-processed-food-style homogeneous paste. It turned out tasty, but still a little chunky for my liking. It's just really hard to chop it all fine enough with my dull old knives. So this time, I employed the elbow grease of a food processor, but still followed the recipe for what order to add things, and just pulsed it long enough to where it looked like I would have stopped chopping by hand for each step. The result was a really scrumptious mix that doesn't take much to spruce up a meal and keeps in the fridge for a good while.
Brazilian Beans & Rice:
A few years ago we spent two weeks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, staying in some friends' home and doing as they did. Part of that was an everyday lunch of beans & rice. I loved it - the simplicity, the routine, and the explosion of garlic and onion flavor. In the move I recaptured some ice cream buckets full of beans, which were preserved airtight and still great. (Actually, I've had them a whole lot longer than the year in storage. They were part of some friends of ours' parents' Y2K stock of foods you're supposed to keep on hand in case of crisis but never eat in real life, so that makes them more like 10 years old. Which I hesitate to say because you'll think I'm not really a "foodie" but like I said, once they're dried and sealed airtight, they pretty much keep forever.) Our Brazilian friends used pintos, but I used black beans. Soaked them overnight and cooked them on the stovetop for a few hours (next time I'll do the crockpot just for the forget-about-it factor, because they boiled over once and I had to remove all the stove rings and clean under there). Added some garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and cut-up smoked sausage for flavor and let that simmer together on low for a while, and Boom! Was it ever good. Had some of the leftover beans in breakfast burritos this morning, with scrambled egg, cheese, homemade salsa, sauteed spinach and onion, and a dollop of plain yogurt. I might be a little biased, but there's just no better way to start your day.
Senegalese Chicken Yassa:
A chili-lemon chicken stew similar to this one (though the actual recipe I used was on a printed page and I'm not sure where to find it online). Once again, the crock pot ruled the day. I added some tomatoes and spinach for the color and nutritional value, served it over a 5-minute pot of cous cous, and sprinkled my own serving with shredded coconut (B. opted out of that garnish). It was divine. A flavor really unlike what you normally taste here. I seriously think I was born on the wrong continent.
Looking forward to Thanksgiving:
To go with that coconut-creamy pumpkin pie I mentioned, I found a recipe for a tempting twist on sweet potatoes, for anyone who's sick of the old marshmallow-topped sugarbomb variety.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Catching Up
Wow, it's been a while, two months. But what a good two months it's been.
I can now go back and check off "getting our stuff out of storage in Minneapolis" from the moving to-do list. Check. We finally got our window of time and took it.
"Visiting my family in Canada" - check! That was a wonderful thing to have done. And with all the changes in us this past year, it felt different, better somehow. Got to see my brother and his son, finally meet his girlfriend, and make him the vegan version of mom's banana cream pie that I've been promising him for ever, "when I come up there." Went out with "the girls" I grew up with and planned a little 15-year reunion for next summer. I'm saving the fun of looking for a flight for some cold, dreary day this winter, in January or February when all the holidays are over and I need something fun to look forward to. Yay!
Also check off the relational closure that I'm not sure I wrote into the list but needed all the same. When we left a year ago we thought we'd be back in 3 months so we just went, saying the kind of goodbyes that mean, "see you soon," instead of the kind that mean, "we're really leaving, and I don't know if or when I'll see you again, so let's do this right." Of course I'm sure we'll be back to visit, as we have left some "bosom friends and kindred spirits" in the city that was our 14-year home. But all that to say I feel the kind of closure that allows me to close that chapter of our life and be fully present in this one. It took a year but it happened. I knew it would.
I can now go back and check off "getting our stuff out of storage in Minneapolis" from the moving to-do list. Check. We finally got our window of time and took it.
"Visiting my family in Canada" - check! That was a wonderful thing to have done. And with all the changes in us this past year, it felt different, better somehow. Got to see my brother and his son, finally meet his girlfriend, and make him the vegan version of mom's banana cream pie that I've been promising him for ever, "when I come up there." Went out with "the girls" I grew up with and planned a little 15-year reunion for next summer. I'm saving the fun of looking for a flight for some cold, dreary day this winter, in January or February when all the holidays are over and I need something fun to look forward to. Yay!
Also check off the relational closure that I'm not sure I wrote into the list but needed all the same. When we left a year ago we thought we'd be back in 3 months so we just went, saying the kind of goodbyes that mean, "see you soon," instead of the kind that mean, "we're really leaving, and I don't know if or when I'll see you again, so let's do this right." Of course I'm sure we'll be back to visit, as we have left some "bosom friends and kindred spirits" in the city that was our 14-year home. But all that to say I feel the kind of closure that allows me to close that chapter of our life and be fully present in this one. It took a year but it happened. I knew it would.
Friday, August 21, 2009
My September "Back to School" (But Not) List
As everyone moves into "back-to-school" mode, I want to jump on the "new chapter of life" bandwagon, checking off my list of supplies, so to speak. So here's a progress report regarding our relocation:
- Address changes processed: check
It only took them a month to stop forwarding our mail back to Gadsden, along with B.'s granddad's mail, since we all have the same last name. It's finally fixed and I'm celebrating the small victories!!
- Switch accounts to a local bank: check
- AL driver's licenses: check
This one made the move seem so...final, but once it became clear that we would be here long-term, it only made sense. We even saw on the news today that Huntsville was rated the second best place for kids to grow up (I'm not sure what the criteria were, but towns in other states were named in the list). Not that I have any news in that department...just saying!
- AL license plates: give that just a few more days...
We had to send away for another copy of our title before we could switch those over (since the original was...guess where? In storage in Minneapolis)! That just finally arrived in the mail yesterday.
- Make appearance in the local newspaper: check
Yup, I forgot to tell you that we were photographed a few weeks ago by a local paparazzo while out enjoying a leisurely stroll down a nearby "country" road and this photo appeared in the Huntsville Times the next morning. Hi Mom!
- Retrieve stuff from storage in Minneapolis: yeeeaaahhhh...
I keep hoping one of these years that might happen. But we've gotten used to living on the carload of stuff we brought down here with us, and are in a more-than-furnished house. The cost simply outweighs the benefit right now. All I really miss is our camping gear and my piano.
- Nail down some long-term jobs: pending
We continue to submit job applications, one of which I'm especially excited about as we head into this weekend. It seems like a perfect mix of structure and interaction with the public while providing a much-needed service. What a great way to make a living - meeting people and doing something meaningful for them. Sure hope I get to work there - I think I would LOVE it!
- Visit my family in Canada: pending vacation schedules from aforementioned pending jobs
This is a big weekend for them - today is my parents' 33rd wedding anniversary and on Sunday my "little" brother turns 30! I can't believe that - even though I know he's grown up and even beaten me to having children (as if it were a race!), he's still 15 in my head, like when I left home for college. Wishing everyone a fun, special weekend full of festivities and celebration, and wishing I could have been there to enjoy it with you too. xo!
- Address changes processed: check
It only took them a month to stop forwarding our mail back to Gadsden, along with B.'s granddad's mail, since we all have the same last name. It's finally fixed and I'm celebrating the small victories!!
- Switch accounts to a local bank: check
- AL driver's licenses: check
This one made the move seem so...final, but once it became clear that we would be here long-term, it only made sense. We even saw on the news today that Huntsville was rated the second best place for kids to grow up (I'm not sure what the criteria were, but towns in other states were named in the list). Not that I have any news in that department...just saying!
- AL license plates: give that just a few more days...
We had to send away for another copy of our title before we could switch those over (since the original was...guess where? In storage in Minneapolis)! That just finally arrived in the mail yesterday.
- Make appearance in the local newspaper: check
Yup, I forgot to tell you that we were photographed a few weeks ago by a local paparazzo while out enjoying a leisurely stroll down a nearby "country" road and this photo appeared in the Huntsville Times the next morning. Hi Mom!
- Retrieve stuff from storage in Minneapolis: yeeeaaahhhh...
I keep hoping one of these years that might happen. But we've gotten used to living on the carload of stuff we brought down here with us, and are in a more-than-furnished house. The cost simply outweighs the benefit right now. All I really miss is our camping gear and my piano.
- Nail down some long-term jobs: pending
We continue to submit job applications, one of which I'm especially excited about as we head into this weekend. It seems like a perfect mix of structure and interaction with the public while providing a much-needed service. What a great way to make a living - meeting people and doing something meaningful for them. Sure hope I get to work there - I think I would LOVE it!
- Visit my family in Canada: pending vacation schedules from aforementioned pending jobs
This is a big weekend for them - today is my parents' 33rd wedding anniversary and on Sunday my "little" brother turns 30! I can't believe that - even though I know he's grown up and even beaten me to having children (as if it were a race!), he's still 15 in my head, like when I left home for college. Wishing everyone a fun, special weekend full of festivities and celebration, and wishing I could have been there to enjoy it with you too. xo!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Orange-Vanilla Dreamsicle Iced Tea
Just made the best home-brewed sweet tea EVER. Actually, I made it yesterday combining some favorite tea flavors and forgot about it until now. So I just had the first sip and what a wonderful surprise. I want to share it with you!
I have a 6-cup pitcher I've been using for tea, so I used 3 tea bags (adjust the recipe according to the size of your pitcher). This one was an assortment of flavored black teas:
* one bag orange spice
* one bag french vanilla
* one bag plain ol' black tea
Boil 3 cups of water (or enough to half fill your pitcher) and pour over teabags in pitcher.
Let steep for an hour or two.
While tea is still slightly warm, remove the teabags and stir in approximately 1/4 cup sugar (or equivalent sweetener) for each teabag, until sugar is completely dissolved.
Fill the jug the rest of the way with the same amount of cold water as you used hot water before.
Chill & serve iced.
I'm anxious to try it with milk or cream in it too, I just didn't happen to have any in the fridge today.
Hope you get to try it and enjoy it too!
I have a 6-cup pitcher I've been using for tea, so I used 3 tea bags (adjust the recipe according to the size of your pitcher). This one was an assortment of flavored black teas:
* one bag orange spice
* one bag french vanilla
* one bag plain ol' black tea
Boil 3 cups of water (or enough to half fill your pitcher) and pour over teabags in pitcher.
Let steep for an hour or two.
While tea is still slightly warm, remove the teabags and stir in approximately 1/4 cup sugar (or equivalent sweetener) for each teabag, until sugar is completely dissolved.
Fill the jug the rest of the way with the same amount of cold water as you used hot water before.
Chill & serve iced.
I'm anxious to try it with milk or cream in it too, I just didn't happen to have any in the fridge today.
Hope you get to try it and enjoy it too!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Draw
Do we ever question what holds the eye
of the pigeon homeward bound
when he could so easily nest in any
convenient tree?
Yet, by some inward law his heart is fixed and sound,
and never will his wings find rest
until he's chosen the best,
until he reaches his goal, his destiny.
Or do we still stop and wonder why a compass
is always faithfully drawn
to true north? It always moves
with unquestioned consistency.
It matters not the time or season, neither night nor dawn;
but by some unwritten law it "knows",
no matter how the winds may blow,
to its only rest it turns, reliably.
But still I have to ponder why
there exists in me such law
that continues to gravitate northward,
ever homeward, with such certainty.
Yes, I've rested in others, but even then so strong the draw;
and nothing seems to still
the magnet-like pull I feel
to my one sole rest, my home in you.
-Unknown
(I came across this poem in B.'s grandmother's old recipe file, of all places, in her kitchen. It was originally written to a girl, but I left her name off here since it made me think of home!)
of the pigeon homeward bound
when he could so easily nest in any
convenient tree?
Yet, by some inward law his heart is fixed and sound,
and never will his wings find rest
until he's chosen the best,
until he reaches his goal, his destiny.
Or do we still stop and wonder why a compass
is always faithfully drawn
to true north? It always moves
with unquestioned consistency.
It matters not the time or season, neither night nor dawn;
but by some unwritten law it "knows",
no matter how the winds may blow,
to its only rest it turns, reliably.
But still I have to ponder why
there exists in me such law
that continues to gravitate northward,
ever homeward, with such certainty.
Yes, I've rested in others, but even then so strong the draw;
and nothing seems to still
the magnet-like pull I feel
to my one sole rest, my home in you.
-Unknown
(I came across this poem in B.'s grandmother's old recipe file, of all places, in her kitchen. It was originally written to a girl, but I left her name off here since it made me think of home!)
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Cooking Up an Epiphany
The other day I found an Asian grocery here in Huntsville that's a lot like Minneapolis' United Noodle was before it expanded. I can't even describe the feeling it gave me, but after 6 months in a town with nothing but Walmart's "ethnic foods aisle," I was as giddy as a little kid at Christmas. B. was laughing at me as I ran around giggling and filling the basket with treasures like curry pastes and chili-garlic sauce and nori and some big soup bowls and matching ceramic spoons like you get at restaurants. (Hey, all our stuff is still in storage in Minneapolis, and there are no large bowls here!) On the way home I figured that the real reason for my excitement had more to do with the fact that finding more similarities to Minneapolis made Huntsville feel more like "home." After being more homesick than ever in my life, it was a good feeling.
Now that I'm all set up to crank out fine Asian food, however, I had a hankering for something different tonight, something kinda Greek. I had a cute little eggplant that I picked up at the farmers' market that fit into the palm of my hand. I sliced it into thick rounds and drizzled it with olive oil, pepper and sea salt, and roasted it in the little toaster oven, then flipped them over, sprinkled some fresh parmesan and browned that for a bit. I had a couple of avocadoes that I'd been saving for guac, but as I pulled out the yogurt and cumin I started thinking a tzatziki might go better with the eggplant. I hopped online and found this recipe for Avocado Tzatziki - the best of both worlds! Except I used more yogurt and mint and added some cumin. Yum. B. (who made himself some ramen noodles in one of the new bowls instead) is going to kill me for eating garlic again.
But I had a sort of epiphany as I chopped fresh mint for the dip. I had mixed it up per the recipe and decided I wanted more mint in the mix. So I was pinching these cute little baby leaves off the stalk and wondering if they felt sad to leave their little perch and go off into the unknown (yeah, I tend to personify things quite a bit!). Then I thought, "but it's for such a good cause! They're going into this fabulous mix of flavors and they're what makes tzatziki so wonderful!" I thought of the verse about how the clay doesn't tell the potter what it wants to be made into, but the potter calls that shot. The mint is at my mercy to do something worthwhile with it. And that's why I am here in Huntsville, Alabama in the mix of people and places and things that I'm in. God sees the bigger picture. I'm just going with the flow, letting the flavors meld and we'll see how it all turns out!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The Three H's
Well, I went running the day before yesterday, for the first time since moving to Huntsville. A couple of new factors to contend with...
- Heat - It was well into the 70's by 7 am, which wouldn't be so bad, except that it goes up about 10 degrees every hour in the mornings, so you've got to go early, before the sun gets up over the trees, or you're toast.
- Humidity - Kind of like the wind chill factor up north, but in reverse. When you're breathing hard and need to get a good dose of oxygen, it's more like breathing soup. And the sweat doesn't evaporate because there's nowhere for it to go, so you just stay glistening. And yet, oddly, I find myself perpetually dehydrated. Never have the crisp, juicy veggies in a Subway sandwich felt so refreshing.
- Hills - I'm trying to remember if I've ever had sore quads from running before. I don't think so. I underestimated how much effort it takes to control one's speed on the downhills. I'm still feeling it in my shins, quads and abs...huh?
But even with all that, I felt so energized after getting out there and pounding the pavement. Hooray!
- Heat - It was well into the 70's by 7 am, which wouldn't be so bad, except that it goes up about 10 degrees every hour in the mornings, so you've got to go early, before the sun gets up over the trees, or you're toast.
- Humidity - Kind of like the wind chill factor up north, but in reverse. When you're breathing hard and need to get a good dose of oxygen, it's more like breathing soup. And the sweat doesn't evaporate because there's nowhere for it to go, so you just stay glistening. And yet, oddly, I find myself perpetually dehydrated. Never have the crisp, juicy veggies in a Subway sandwich felt so refreshing.
- Hills - I'm trying to remember if I've ever had sore quads from running before. I don't think so. I underestimated how much effort it takes to control one's speed on the downhills. I'm still feeling it in my shins, quads and abs...huh?
But even with all that, I felt so energized after getting out there and pounding the pavement. Hooray!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Chillin' Like a Huntsvillian
Well, we've moved again. Seventy miles north to Huntsville to do some repairs and maintenance on B.'s granddad's house and yard while he's away for the summer. It's a great property, and has been in the family for over 50 years. We've been here just over a week now and have found it to be a place of peace and rest and one that fosters a lot of creative productivity.
The first thing we tackled when we got here was the birdbath and feeders. They were all moldy and the birds had long since stopped coming around them. I dumped the birdbath and scoured it out with a scrub brush, then refilled it with fresh water. Then I took the feeders apart and cleaned them out. Discovered one was broken and letting water in, so we trashed it, but the other, bigger one cleaned up nicely and B. refilled it with fresh seeds and hung it next to the bath.
Now there's rarely a minute that passes without birds right outside the window at eye level. All kinds too - we've had blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, robins, doves, chickadees, and some other ones I didn't recognize. They're eating, singing, splashing, squabbling. Need to get another hummingbird feeder going, back by the breakfast nook, so those lil' guys come back too. They're so much fun to watch!
We've noticed another visitor too - a woodchuck, nosing around underneath the birdbath. He's a big one, I'm guessing a 30-pounder. Not sure what he was looking for, but we think he lives in the monkey grass around the tool shed. We fondly refer to him as "the dog."
Right now I'm curled up on the couch (hey, it's Saturday!) with a heating pad and afghan, watching B. go around and around, up and down the acre lot on a riding mower, wearing a straw hat. I think we're going to love being old people someday. We pretty much already are.
The first thing we tackled when we got here was the birdbath and feeders. They were all moldy and the birds had long since stopped coming around them. I dumped the birdbath and scoured it out with a scrub brush, then refilled it with fresh water. Then I took the feeders apart and cleaned them out. Discovered one was broken and letting water in, so we trashed it, but the other, bigger one cleaned up nicely and B. refilled it with fresh seeds and hung it next to the bath.
Now there's rarely a minute that passes without birds right outside the window at eye level. All kinds too - we've had blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, robins, doves, chickadees, and some other ones I didn't recognize. They're eating, singing, splashing, squabbling. Need to get another hummingbird feeder going, back by the breakfast nook, so those lil' guys come back too. They're so much fun to watch!
We've noticed another visitor too - a woodchuck, nosing around underneath the birdbath. He's a big one, I'm guessing a 30-pounder. Not sure what he was looking for, but we think he lives in the monkey grass around the tool shed. We fondly refer to him as "the dog."
Right now I'm curled up on the couch (hey, it's Saturday!) with a heating pad and afghan, watching B. go around and around, up and down the acre lot on a riding mower, wearing a straw hat. I think we're going to love being old people someday. We pretty much already are.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Mash-up
I never cease to be thoroughly amused when I come across a new use for the word "mash."
There are a lot of things you can mash in the South besides potatoes.
You don't shut your finger in the door. You mash it.
You don't swat flies or kill spiders. You mash 'em.
You don't press buttons on the telephone or computer keyboard. You mash the buttons.
Give me a call if you come across any more good uses for "mash." If you get my voicemail, just mash 1 to leave a message and I'll get back to you.
There are a lot of things you can mash in the South besides potatoes.
You don't shut your finger in the door. You mash it.
You don't swat flies or kill spiders. You mash 'em.
You don't press buttons on the telephone or computer keyboard. You mash the buttons.
Give me a call if you come across any more good uses for "mash." If you get my voicemail, just mash 1 to leave a message and I'll get back to you.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
First Things First
"Hey there, how y'all doin'? Sleep well last night?" I'm doing well, in good health, slept well last night and woke up to a lovely thunderstorm that spoke up to punctuate the word just as I typed it. Love it when that happens! Thunderstorm. Hmm, not that time. Does lightning strike twice in the same blog post? I was starting to feel bad that it's been so long since I wrote here but then I saw that my last post and this one are both in March so we're good, right?
Had to start off on a personal note there, before getting down to business, so as not to be rude. Now, I don't know about you, but I tend to go to places of business for, well, business. But here there's another piece to that interaction. I'm not sure how much is a north/south difference or an urban/rural difference - I think it's some of both. But I've noticed that I'm so used to operating in the former mode (north + urban) that it's taking me some time to really get used to this Southern small town.
Imagine going to a well-known office supply store to send a fax. You're in a hurry to send this fax because it relates to your taxes, someone's waiting for it on the other end, and another someone is waiting for you out in the car. There's one person behind the counter and several in line. The worker chit-chats with each person in turn, starts their job and personally oversees it to completion. Your turn finally comes after waiting in line for 20 minutes and the guy turns to you and says something. That was me a couple of weeks ago.
"I need to send this fax..." I began, but stopped myself. I had expected the guy to have said something like, "How can I help you?" or "Who's next?" But he hadn't said that. He said, "You look familiar, have you been here before?" Which was to say, "I know my regulars, and you aren't one of them. Are you new in town?"
I mentally pressed rewind and started over. "I may have been here once before, I'm not sure, but my husband and I just moved here from Minnesota."
"Minnesota!" exclaimed the worker, and two or three other people forming the line behind me, which wasn't a vertical line at all but more of a horizontal gathering, where everyone just remembers who's on first and waves people with smaller jobs than theirs ahead so they can all watch the production. Wouldn't you rather watch someone laminate coloring book pages than stare at the back of some stranger's head? I would.
Fortunately, he took my fax and got it started before continuing on the Minnesota thread, what the weather's like up there this time of year, how fortunate I was to have missed it, but how cold it's been here too - it actually snowed for a couple of hours that one day the other week. (I've gotta give it to 'em - it was blowing sideways. I was so excited that day I got out of the car and danced in it, at least for a few seconds.) My fax went through, he eventually went and got it off the machine and gave it back to me, I paid, and we all said our goodbyes like old friends. As I walked out to the car I realized that my stress over getting the fax sent out had been replaced with a pleasant sense of having been noticed and welcomed.
It's strange to me, given the fun, relational person that I am naturally, that it hasn't just come naturally to relate that way (at least not on every occasion), but I guess that's some sort of "culture shock," combined with my tendency to lean the opposite way and bring some kind of balance, while my practicality and efficiency screams for the ref to call a time-wasting foul (*blows whistle and winds finger in big circles in front of other wrist where a watch might be*). I mean, it's not quite Africa or Brazil where everything's so relationally driven that time is thrown out the window, but having been to both of those places gives me some understanding for the different values that are at play here. People matter more than tasks. I can appreciate that!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Roots
I've had a few conversations with an Australian friend who lives in Minnesota about coming from one country and living in another, how you often feel like you're not completely one or the other, but some kind of 'hybrid model' in a perpetual state of compromise and of longing for home. (Come to think of it, I have several girlfriends from other countries who married Minnesota boys and migrated there. Hmm, what is it about Minnesota boys? I guess I just considered myself one of them (the girlfriends, that is!) until B.'s Alabama roots came calling. I mean we'd always talked about someday retiring and rocking on the front porch of an old farmhouse down in south Alabam...but I kind of thought of it more as a package deal, something filed away under Future Chapters of Life.)
I've been talking to a lot of people on the phone lately, since I've been filling in at my in-laws' church office while their usual receptionist had surgery. It's been a lot of fun, but every now and then, someone will stop talking and then ask, "Well, now honey, where are you from?" And I'll tell them. And they'll say, "Well, I could tell you weren't from HERE!"
Then just the other night I called a business in Canada about a tax form I was missing (it's in storage in Minneapolis, whoops) and after we'd talked a while, I gave the girl the address in Alabama to mail the new copy to. She said the same thing the southerners said: "Aha, now it makes sense. I could tell you weren't from around HERE!"
My Aussie friend and I used to talk about how much more keenly aware all this made us of the fact that our home, our citizenship, is in heaven and not on earth. It's always a good reminder. I think some people never have the opportunity to fully appreciate that concept.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
OHHHHHHH, and I almost forgot...
Here's a little Southern Breakfast Song to get stuck in your head all day. You can thank my dear mother-in-law for this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqM9-Fj0Pg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqM9-Fj0Pg
Nanner Puddin' for Breakfast
I read a report that ranked the states from healthiest to least healthy, looking at several factors from air and water quality to diet to exercise habits. I don't remember the exact details, but basically start at the northwestern states and work your way down to the southeastern ones. Every one of the ten least healthy states were in the south/southeast. I know what it is, it's all that bacon grease. Even when you order veggies at a restaurant they've been stewed in it. I mean, it sure is tasty...
On a similar note, this morning I discovered a quick and easy way to have nanner puddin' without buying Nilla Wafers or getting out a fancy glass bowl and arranging all the layers.
1. Pour bowl of cereal (Honey Bunches of Oats does quite nicely)
2. Slice banana over cereal
3. Add milk (just a bit to moisten the cereal)
4. Top with dollop of vanilla pudding
5. Enjoy
Of course, this assumes that one has a bowl of pudding in the fridge, on call. I normally do not. But last night I saw a package of instant pudding in the cupboard and got me a hankerin' fer some.
The day's off to a good start. But don't worry, tomorrow I'll be back to my usual poached egg.
On a similar note, this morning I discovered a quick and easy way to have nanner puddin' without buying Nilla Wafers or getting out a fancy glass bowl and arranging all the layers.
1. Pour bowl of cereal (Honey Bunches of Oats does quite nicely)
2. Slice banana over cereal
3. Add milk (just a bit to moisten the cereal)
4. Top with dollop of vanilla pudding
5. Enjoy
Of course, this assumes that one has a bowl of pudding in the fridge, on call. I normally do not. But last night I saw a package of instant pudding in the cupboard and got me a hankerin' fer some.
The day's off to a good start. But don't worry, tomorrow I'll be back to my usual poached egg.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Tomay-to,Tomah-to
Okay, language confession time. I called a shopping cart a "buggy" tonight. But not because it was the first thing to come to my mind. Simply because I knew that that was what the store employee knew it as. Why stand there explaining that by "cart" what I really meant was "buggy?" It's just not worth the trouble.
That's why I started spelling my last name with a "zee" instead of a "zed" most of the time, back when I moved to the US (or for my Canadian friends, "the States") for college. Why launch a twenty-minute conversation with a stranger when you can just get on with your day? Every now and then it's kinda fun though.
That's why I started spelling my last name with a "zee" instead of a "zed" most of the time, back when I moved to the US (or for my Canadian friends, "the States") for college. Why launch a twenty-minute conversation with a stranger when you can just get on with your day? Every now and then it's kinda fun though.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Hooray!
This has been the first winter in my entire 31 years where I've seen less than 3 hours of snowfall. That happened a week ago today, by the way, and by Friday we were back up to 70 degrees and sunny.
I have decided to approach the coming summer with loathing, fear and dread. That way, when it's just plain hot, it won't be half as bad as I expected.
Since I've just moved to Alabama from Minnesota, I anticipate that I will need to do some clothes shopping pretty soon as most of my clothes are warm layers. It's only March, but the weather is already like what I'm used to seeing in June, meaning dog days are just around the corner. I'm also going to have to rethink things like food storage, outdoor activities, and what I do and don't leave out in my car.
B. grew up here, so it's mostly normal to him, although 14 years in Minneapolis had all but erased his old drawl and ramped up his natural go-getter pace. Things definitely move a little slower here...not bad, just different.
As an impressionable little kid, I had the Dixieland song on a record (Disney or Sesame Street or something? I can't remember!) and I had no idea where Dixie was. I only knew from the part of the song that goes "I wish I was in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray!" that it must be a pretty exciting place and I wanted to check it out someday. Imagine my surprise the first time I saw an Alabama license plate (er, "tag") with "Heart of Dixie" emblazoned across the top. Well, childhood self, here we are.
Will be an interesting chapter in life.
I have decided to approach the coming summer with loathing, fear and dread. That way, when it's just plain hot, it won't be half as bad as I expected.
Since I've just moved to Alabama from Minnesota, I anticipate that I will need to do some clothes shopping pretty soon as most of my clothes are warm layers. It's only March, but the weather is already like what I'm used to seeing in June, meaning dog days are just around the corner. I'm also going to have to rethink things like food storage, outdoor activities, and what I do and don't leave out in my car.
B. grew up here, so it's mostly normal to him, although 14 years in Minneapolis had all but erased his old drawl and ramped up his natural go-getter pace. Things definitely move a little slower here...not bad, just different.
As an impressionable little kid, I had the Dixieland song on a record (Disney or Sesame Street or something? I can't remember!) and I had no idea where Dixie was. I only knew from the part of the song that goes "I wish I was in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray!" that it must be a pretty exciting place and I wanted to check it out someday. Imagine my surprise the first time I saw an Alabama license plate (er, "tag") with "Heart of Dixie" emblazoned across the top. Well, childhood self, here we are.
Will be an interesting chapter in life.
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